The Florida Prison Education Project (FPEP) has received a $50,000 National Endowment for the Arts Art Works grant to support “Illuminating the Darkness: Our Carceral Landscape,” a project that will provide a series of visual arts workshops for men and women incarcerated in Central Florida. These workshops will be taught by visiting contemporary artists whose work engages with mass incarcerations and social justice. The project will culminate in an exhibition in the UCF Art Gallery and online through RICHES, the Regional Initiative for Collecting History, Experiences, and Stories.
The grant was written by Keri Watson, assistant professor of art history in the School of Visual Arts and Design (SVAD) and the director of the Florida Prison Education Project, along with Connie Lester, associate professor of history and director of RICHES, Shannon Lindsey, director of the UCF Art Gallery, and Jason Burrell, assistant director of SVAD.
“The Florida Prison Education Project is thrilled to receive this generous funding,” says Watson. “This grant will enable us to bring college-level art curriculum to men and women incarcerated in Central Florida, and raise awareness about mass incarceration and the school-to-prison pipeline among our UCF students.”
Visiting artists’ workshops in the prisons and lectures on the main campus of UCF will take place in Fall 2019 and Spring 2020. The art exhibition in the UCF Gallery will take place in Fall 2020.
Find out more about FPEP by visiting cah.ucf.edu/fpep/.